


adansey

by ronanlunch



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, adansey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-04-05 01:29:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4160481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronanlunch/pseuds/ronanlunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>adansey ficlets because they're the best</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. could you be happy here with me

Adam wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had been in Henrietta last. He refused to call it home, but sometimes he forgot himself and remembered it with something others might have mistaken for fondness. Perhaps this was why he was outside Monmouth now, knowing that nothing was really left there. Not for him, anyway.

As he opened the door, he found himself wishing it was empty, but of course it wasn’t, the smell of mint had caressed his senses ever since he left the car, and as his eyes adjusted to the dark, there were the maps, the books, the windows overlooking the kingdom, and there, by the desk, the familiar hunched over silhouette of Richard Gansey the third.

Adam considered leaving, had halfway convinced himself, when Gansey turned around and his eyes lit up with recognition and maybe, for a second, relief.

Adam coughed.

“I was on my way to visit Ronan at the Barns, and he told me to stop by to pick some stuff up on the way.” It sounded a lot like an excuse, even in his own ears.

“You mean he told you to check on me,” Gansey corrected, his voice resigned, his eyes resigned, his entire being no longer an image of a powerful young king, rather a man who had lost everything but that last feeble hope.

Adam didn’t answer, just watched Gansey watching him.

“Do you miss it?” Gansey asked, suddenly eager, and Adam shrugged. He didn’t say anything, didn’t need to ask it in return. The signs were everywhere.

Gansey knocked a frame over on his desk, the picture side down. It did not seem as accidental as Gansey would have wanted, but he had never been a good liar. Anyway, Adam had already seen it. The photo of the five of them, it couldn’t be more than a little over a year old but it felt like forever. Adam’s own features were the only ones that weren’t covered by a thick layer of dust. There were no secrets between them anymore. Adam wasn’t sure there ever really had been.

“Anyway,” Adam said. “Anyway. It was nice seeing you, I should get going.” He wanted to say more, wanted to ask Gansey to come visit, wanted to promise that he would come back, but he couldn’t find it in him.

A smile was sent his way, thin, tired, tired, tired, everything about Gansey was tired.

“You forgot whatever Ronan needed,” he said.

Nodding, Adam went into Ronan’s room, picked up the first thing he found. The parking tickets were still there, his bed unmade, like he just got up one day and left. Which, in some ways, was exactly what he did.

Gansey had turned back to his books when Adam returned, and Adam lingered in the doorway of the room, watching him for a little. He had been so big. He had contained the entire universe. Now, nothing was left.

As he approached the exit, a hand landed on his shoulder and Adam let it stop him, let the weight on his shoulder ground him and support him and fill his head with possibilities and might-have-beens.

“Could you be happy here with me?” Gansey asked him, quiet, hopeful. There were three heartbeats too many before Adam answered, and he knew that, so he didn’t turn, didn’t look Gansey in the eye, just made sure he kept his voice steady as he spoke, before leaving Monmouth for the last time. His reply echoed in his head as he drove away, but he wouldn’t let himself regret it.

“You know the answer to that already.


	2. things you said at 1am

Adam is looking tired. It’s as if his entire being is slumping - his eyelids, the curve of his mouth, his shoulders, everything is sagging, crumpling, sinking towards the floor, and you wish you could hold him up, turn around and walk him home, but you know he would never let you, and when he meets your gaze he twists away, disappearing behind some trees.

“I’m sorry this is taking so long,” he mumbles and you tell him not to worry about you, you never sleep anyway. You don’t say the last part out loud though. He has enough on his mind.

There was a girl once, on a beach somewhere in South America perhaps, who taught you to unknot muscles, relax shoulders tense from years of anxiety. It felt like magic, and you think about it now. How Adam’s warm skin would feel under your fingers, the smell of the heat and the oil and the sun and them, together. You think about touching him, and then you push the thought away, bring yourself back to the nighttime forest and the damp wet cold and the reality, where he’s not yours to touch and the fantasies aren’t yours to play around with.

When he looks at you the smile is on, just like your mother taught you, and he frowns before bending down to tentatively nudge a stone.


	3. things you said when you were drunk/things you said when you were scared

The choice to sleep at Monmouth instead of the freezing St.Agnes loft had been easy. Seeing as there were no one home, there were no one to bother and, more importantly, no one to know. And Monmouth had a fairly functioning electrical heating system and thick blankets made from proper wool and a kettle and enough instant soup to last a small village for almost a month. For Adam, it was a lot like heaven.

He had just fallen asleep curled up in Gansey’s unbelievably fluffy duvet (with flannel beddings and at least eight pillows, can you imagine) when the door slammed open, accompanied by drunk stumbling. Panic shot through Adam’s body for a split moment, imagining his father hovering over his bed, but once he recognised the heavy-glass windows of Monmouth the fear was replaced by something else.

How come Ronan had cut his visit to the Barns and his family short, and why had he been drinking? Not that Adam was surprised. Stupid man child.

It is possible that his anger is fueled by fear and guilt of being found in someone else’s bed, true, but Adam doesn’t let that discourage him. He heaves himself off of the soft mattress, ready to bitch his way out of there, when he realises that the silhouette tripping its way towards him isn’t Ronan’s tall and lanky figure. Rather, it is Gansey. Gansey, who is supposed to be in Washington. Gansey, whose mother has an important fundraiser and has ordered her son to accompany them.

“What are you doing home?” Adam’s voice is puzzled and hollow in the empty room, echoes ricocheting back to them from the dusty corners.

Gansey, who had stooped to the floor in an attempt to unlace his dress shoe, glances up at him, distracted, before continue the work with uncooperative fingers.

“Oh, hey,” he says before almost toppling over. Eventually, he seems to give up on the laces, and instead settles himself properly on the floor to pull the shoes off.

“Glad you’re here, actually, wanted to talk to you,” he continues, slurring just a little, after he has successfully removed both of them.

Undignified, he crawls to his feet and finds his way to bed, where he throws himself next to where Adam is sitting, an alcoholic cloud, possibly mojitos, enveloping them both. It suits him, weirdly enough, Adam catches himself thinking. The ease, the relaxation, the slow drawl of being drunk. Gansey has a way of looking comfortable and at home anywhere - a natural gift that Adam envies him.

“Need to tell you something.” Gansey pulls on the hem of Adam’s t-shirt, drags him onto the bed and almost onto himself. The quiet droning of Adam’s brain is switched out by the insistent beating of his heart, his blood rushing, rushing, rushing, making him acutely aware of every tiny cell in his body.

“Come closer,” he whispers and Adam has to crawl in to hear him, the smell of mint overpowering, “closer, it’s a secret, we don’t want any of those Glendower spies to hear,” has to crawl all the way flush into Gansey, his body warm and soft and drunk, “come closer, Adam,” Gansey’s breath tickling his good ear, so endlessly close, and then.

“I know I’m gonna die.”

The world stops for a moment, just a split nothing of a moment, and Adam’s breath is caught somewhere in his chest, but he knows it can’t be heard in his voice, he is a master of lies, and so he smiles reassuringly.

“We’re all gonna die, Gansey. Don’t go all existential on m-” Gansey’s shaky finger presses against Adam’s mouth, silencing him.

“Not what I meant. I’m dead, soon. Soon soon. And you know. And I know you know. I’ve noticed the way you watch me.”

He is tracing Adam’s lips with the tip of his finger now, lost in thought.

“It’s okay. I’m scared but it’s okay. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s just…” Gansey’s voice trails off, his hand pulling away from Adam’s face, and instead it settles on his chest, the thumb moving in soothing circles.

“There’s so many things I want to do before I die.”

Their eyes meet through the dark and the haze and the closeness, and Adam is hit full force with the fact that the boy in front of him -just a boy still, despite his old soul and old knowledge and old eyes- will not be here to look at him, to talk to him, to touch him, a year from now. He wants to drag him closer, pull him all the way inside, and keep him safe, keep him close and never let him go, and never have to let him go. Instead, he leans up and plants a kiss on Gansey’s forehead.

“I’ll fight to make sure you have time.”


End file.
